Category: 2015
Technology allows us to record almost everything happening in the classroom. The fact that students’ interactions with learning environments can be logged in every detail raises the interesting question about whether or not there is any significant meaning and value in those data and how we can make use of them to help students and […]
The National Science Foundation funds SmartCAD—an intelligent learning system for engineering design
We are pleased to announce that the National Science Foundation has awarded the Concord Consortium, Purdue University, and the University of Virginia a $3 million, four-year collaborative project to conduct research and development on SmartCAD, an intelligent learning system that informs engineering design of students with automatic feedback generated using computational analysis of their work. […]
Interactive science (Image credit: Franco Landriscina)If future historians were to write a book about the most important contributions of technology to improving science education, it would be hard for them to skip computer modeling and simulation.Much…
SimBuilding (alpha version) is a 3D simulation game that we are developing to provide a more accessible and fun way to teach building science. A good reason that we are working on this game is because we want to teach building science concepts and prac…
We’re thrilled to be participating in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) for the fourth year running! Two international students will spend the summer coding for our open source projects, and through GSoC, they’ll earn stipends from Google, plus get a coveted GSoC t-shirt and certificate.
An array of heliostats in Energy2D (online simulation)A new class of objects was added in Energy2D to model what is called a heliostat, a device that can automatically turn a mirror to reflect sunlight to a target no matter where the sun is in the sky….
In Version 2.3 of Energy2D, I have added full support of undo/redo for most actions. With this feature, you can undo all the way back to your starting point and redo all the way forward to your latest state. This is not only a must-have feature for a d…
Figure 1. A stock-and-flow model of building energy. Our Energy3D CAD software has two built-in simulation engines for performing solar energy analysis and building thermal analysis. I have extensively blogged about solar energy analysis using Energy3D. This article introduces building thermal analysis with Energy3D. Figure 2. A colonial house. The current version of the building […]
Many users asked if there is any good tutorial of Energy2D. I apologize for the lack of a User Manual and other tutorial materials (I am just too busy to set aside time for writing up some good documentations).So Carmen Trudell, an architect who curren…
The National Science Foundation and the Popular Science Magazine have announced that “Beautiful Chemistry” won the Expert’s Choice Award for Video at the 2015 Visualization Challenge, known as Vizzies. According to the Popular Science Magazine, For many, the phrase “chemical reactions” conjures memories of tedious laboratory work and equations scribbled on exams. But Yan Liang, […]